


fatal flaws

by android



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Angst, M/M, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/android/pseuds/android
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kawara looks entirely breakable, and if it comes to that, Sakuya will piece him together again.</p>
<p>set post-BBL.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fatal flaws

Sakuya refuses to let him go home alone. It takes some arguing, but Kawara is won over easily. He doesn't have the will to argue. Sakuya can see the exhaustion in Kawara's eyes, how tired he is, but it's not just there-- Kawara _looks_ the word. Sakuya can't find any better word in his repertoire of expensive, well-taught vocabulary to define it. Just... tired, exhausted, drained of everything. And Kawara is silent, scarily so, not like anything Sakuya has ever seen of him from before the incident at St. Pigeonation's. He walks with a slow gait, and Sakuya swears that the rosy red of Kawara's eyes have dulled considerably. It's as if he's leading around Kawara's ghost, instead of Kawara himself. When Sakuya's driver pulls over to the sidewalk, he refuses his help and opens the door himself, holding it so that Kawara can get in first. He doesn't look at Sakuya when he gets in, nor when he sits next to him. With his head hung low like that, Sakuya can't make out what he is looking at, or if he's looking at anything at all.

He wishes Kawara would say something. Sakuya wishes he would do anything but stay so comatose like that. Kawara looks entirely breakable, and if it comes to that, Sakuya will piece him together again. He didn't struggle to find a cure for the Charon Virus for it to be wasted, didn't go back to get Kawara for him to give up, and it won't happen because Sakuya will not allow it to do so. He does feel bad for him, he does understand the unfairness of the situation, but what it does not mean is that Kawara can call it quits, and that's why Sakuya tugs him out of the limousine once they arrive at the Le Bel estate when Kawara won't budge from his seat. Kawara isn't holding any of his own weight at all, and Sakuya is beginning to get reasonably frustrated. Doesn't Kawara understand he's trying to _help_ him?

"Kawara--"

"Sakuya."

Immediately, he freezes. Kawara's voice is so quiet that Sakuya fears that if he so much as breathes, he's going to miss what he has to say. ...but Kawara doesn't say anything at all, only makes some terrible, pathetic squeaking noise. Frowning, Sakuya grasps Kawara's chin and forces him to turn his head up, and regrets it instantly. Kawara is crying. No-- Kawara is crying, again. Kawara is looking right at him and Sakuya is frozen, now not wanting to be. There's... something running down his hand-- Kawara's tears. Oh. It isn't until he loosens his grip, not realizing it had been the only thing holding Kawara's head up this whole time, that Sakuya is able to move. Kawara's head is rested against his shoulder, and he can still hear him struggle to breathe as he cries, sniffling through his tears. It occurs to Sakuya that his clothes are going to be wet (or at least his left shoulder is going to be) but he can't seem to find it in him to care. He's wrapping his arms around a sniveling commoner, _holding_ him, and as dangerous as that is, he doesn't care. Soon, Kawara starts repeating his name over and over like it's the only word he knows anymore, his voice some painful mix of desperation and total misery. What is he supposed to do? Sakuya has never had to comfort someone like this in his life, yet here he is, willingly letting Kawara hang onto him.

Before he lies down, Sakuya is able to convince Kawara to shower, that he'll feel a little better if he does. It's another hour before Sakuya goes to check on him, gently rapping at the door of the room he's settled in for the time being. Receiving no response, Sakuya opens the door. It opens and closes without a sound but, considering the situation, Sakuya isn't sure if it would even wake Kawara if it fell off its hinges (and it'd better not - this is the _Le Bel_ estate). Sakuya pulls a chair to Kawara's bedside, sitting up straight at first, legs crossed, arms folded over his chest. Kawara's sleeping face is turned toward him, and somehow he looks troubled even in his sleep, the skin around his eyes beginning to redden and swell from all of the crying he'd done before. 

Sakuya can't sit still for long. He rises from the chair and drags it back to its proper place, then returning to stand over Kawara. He selfishly misses the old Kawara, the one whose smile was stupidly dopey and... charming, the Kawara that led him through the school trying to debunk mysteries, the Kawara who has always so rudely called him by his first name, carefree, like he had been friends with Sakuya from the beginning... but... but Sakuya can take this Kawara, too. They are one in the same, no matter how drastic the difference is. It hits him that he's seen a lot of sides of Kawara: happy (his mood by default, really), scared, sad, e...motionless, brave, kind, resigned, caring, loyal... it goes on and on, but all of it is Kawara, every single one. 

This makes him feel odd, not entirely unpleasant, but he feels his heart wrench and his stomach do flips. Sakuya thoughtlessly reaches out toward Kawara, slowly moving to brush blue bangs from his face. He touches him, but only lightly, thumb tracing the line of his brow, and then Kawara moves. For a moment, Sakuya is terrified, but when Kawara turns over he looks... calmer. Almost peaceful. Is it because he...? As he stares, Kawara mumbles his name in his sleep, like a whisper, _"Sakuya."_ There's a lump in his throat Sakuya has to swallow hard to get rid of, and all of a sudden he's leaning down toward Kawara, closer, body moving on it's own accord. Kawara murmurs something in his sleep again and Sakuya stills, catches himself, and suddenly he's very irritated-- angry, even. He needs to leave this room, now, before he does something totally beneath him and mongrel-like, he isn't going to become some kind of... sexual _deviant._ He is not going to kiss a Japanese born commoner in his sleep and he will absolutely _not_ allow himself to get any closer to Kawara than this. He can't get out of that room fast enough. Kawara... Kawara doesn't need him right now. When Kawara wakes, he will attend to whatever needs to be done. He is, of course, needed somewhere else this very moment, definitely, being the son of a Le Bel, and after an eternity of being stuck to the doorknob, Sakuya leaves the room, fighting hard to regain his composure on the way down the hall.

Sakuya was raised to be perfect, the heir of the Le Bel family, but now there's a bump in this plan that no one had foreseen, and certainly Sakuya himself had not seen this coming. Why would he have ever had to prepare for this? If he isn't careful, that bump will become a hill that will become a mountain. There is one fatal flaw present in Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane, and it's that he cares about a commoner. He cares - more than he wants to - about Ryouta Kawara.


End file.
